Applying Latin-based Parts of Speech to Chinese: A Missionary Perspective

Abstract

This paper reviews and compares the classification of Chinese parts of speech in seven important missionary grammars. The comparison demonstrates the evolution of the understanding of Chinese parts of speech among the Western missionaries to China, and analyzes the significant influence of their ideas on the classification of Chinese parts of speech by Chinese linguists. This paper shows that Western missionaries made a very detailed analysis of Chinese parts of speech based on Latin and Indo-European grammar that became the basis for the first indigenous Chinese study in 1898, the Ma shi wentong. The analysis of Chinese parts of speech by missionaries from the 17th to 19th centuries laid the foundation for that of modern Chinese grammar and had a significant impact on later studies of Chinese parts of speech. This paper demonstrates that while the approaches of the Western missionaries were often debatable, their understanding of Chinese parts of speech predates that of native Chinese grammarians.